Friday, June 28, 2013

A New Play on Adam Smith at the Edinburgh Festival, 2-26 August!

“Adam Smith, le Grand Tour, Institut français d’Ecosse,” 2 to 26 August
3pm during the world famous annual International Edinburgh Festival.

One of
this year’s Festival’s many attractions is:

“Compagnie
Les Labyrinthes presents Adam Smith, Le Grand Tour, an original creation for the Fringe mixing
theatre and video for a journey back in time to the origins of the thought of the
key figure of Scottish Enlightenment.

In Adam
Smith, Le Grand Tour, Compagnie Les Labyrinthes takes us on a journey through
Adam Smith’s thought and work. Incorporating economics, philosophy and theatre,
this original creation is an invitation to go back to the founding principles
of liberalism, the context of the Scottish Enlightenment and the influence of
Adam Smith’s thought on our modern society.

Through
the eyes of the two protagonists Marie (Vanessa Oltra) and Fred (Fréderic
Kneip) who have embarked on a journey through Scotland to complete their own
‘Grand Tour’, “Adam Smith, Le Grand Tour” is a sharply written, humorous and
caustic homage to the legacy of the philosopher. Neither an economic nor
a philosophical treaty, it makes us wonder: what remains of Adam Smith today?
And what have we done with his thought?

Coming
to Scotland in summer 2012, Compagnie Les Labyrinthes followed in the footsteps
of Adam Smith and visited the places in Edinburgh and around related to his
life and work. They brought back from this trip the videos that would become
fully part of their multimedia production. World premiering at this year’s
Fringe in its English version, Adam Smith, Le Grand Tour will then be touring
in France in a French version.

Based
in Aquitaine, in south-western France, Compagnie Les Labyrinthes was founded in
1995 by Gérard David, teacher at the Merignac Conservatory. Compagnie Les
Labyrinthes has so far produced about thirty classic and contemporary theatre
projects. In addition to the creation of theatre shows, the company is actively
working on programmes of artistic education intended to schools.

Author
of the show and performer Vanessa Oltra holds a PhD in Economics and is a
senior lecturer at the University of Bordeaux IV. Former student at the
Merignac Conservatory, she has been working with Gérard David for several
years. Adam Smith, Le Grand Tour is her first theatre project involving both
her researcher’s and author’s skills.

Frédéric
Kneip is a performer and director. Former student at the Rennes Conservatory
for Dramatic Arts and and the Merignac Conservatory, he regularly plays with
different companies, including Compagnie Les Labyrinthes. In parallel, he is
working on artistic education in prison.”

Comment

Interesting
that an Adam Smith artistic theme participates in the Edinburgh Festival once again.
Regular readers will recall I covered another play about Adam Smith that I enjoyed, presented some
years ago by a well-informed and enthusiastic amateur group.I looked for a repeat in subsequent years from the same
group (most of them from a much younger generation that myself! - but a couple of people of my age).

Last year, I
reported on a play about Adam Smith dying and going to a sort of heaven, where
he met and discoursed with David Hume, which was presented by a known Scottish professional author
and played by some professional actors.Artistically it was somewhat imaginative (poetic license I suppose!), but
also very entertaining.Hume was, well
David as we know him, a serious moral philosopher, and Adam was played as an allegedly formerly repressed gay, exercising in the after life his new freedoms without the watchful and censorious eyes of his
mother, Margaret Douglas Smith, who, I am sure, would have been relaxed by
anything her son did as long as he remained a Calvinist in good standing.

Unfortunately,
I am unable to attend this year’s Adam Smith play from my absence in France (in
Aquitaine, near Bordeaux, as it happens, from where the joint authors come from, and where Adam Smith visited in 1764 on his visit to
France, 1764-65, though if perchance I could squeeze it in next week before I
go I may very well might.

Visitors to
Scotland who attend this year’s Edinburgh Festival, a cultural festival to suit
all tastes, in the beautiful capital of Scotland, have a wide variety of events
both in the official festival and in the lively Fringe Festival with its scores
of shows and events to choose from.The Fringe is now bigger than the official Festival.It is deeply international in scope.

[NB: Should I
return from France earlier at the end of July, my “Adam Smith Tour of
Edinburgh” will also re-commence. Should any reader be interested in a personal guided 2-hour tour
from his statue, opposite where he worked at the Customs House, to where he
lived and discoursed with other luminaries of the Scottish Enlightenment from
1778-90, including a visit to his grave at the Canongate Parish Church and
where he lived almost next door at Panmure House. Ending at a well known coffee house diagonally opposite Canongate Church.(There is no charge for this tour).

Readers who
are interested in the "Adam Smith Tour" can drop me a line at the address at the
head of Lost Legacy.]